"Insight 3" - The Instrument

Bregenz, 13.3.19. The process of creating a new opera by composer Alexander Moosbrugger and artist Flaka Haliti will lead on this occasion to an unusual place: an organ building workshop in the village of Schwarzach, Vorarlberg. There, the firm Rieger builds instruments for sacred and secular spaces. For the organist Moosbrugger, the ethereal tones of the organ have a special role to play in his compositions.

What is it about the "queen of instruments" that has fascinated people for centuries? The managing director of Rieger Orgelbau, Wendelin Eberle, has been continuously developing the musical capabilities of the organ for many years in collaboration with performers, composers and designers. Spectacular instruments have been built in China, Japan, the Philharmonie de Paris, Martinskirche in Kassel, among other locations in recent years. The workshop offers a fascinating insight into the creation and assembly of this uniquely complex instrument. 

In many of his compositions, Moosbrugger employs the organ's overwhelming, but also softly breathing sounds. The instrument's musical possibilities have also inspired the composer in what he has suggested as the basis for the opera, namely one of the most fascinating and enigmatic books in the world, Hypnerotomachia Poliphili. Probably written by the Dominican Francesco Colonna and first printed in Venice in 1499. The work plays with several languages, takes the reader inside colossal buildings and parks that are also illustrated in numerous woodcuts inserted in the book. The central character Poliphilo's love for Polia also describes the love for language itself and for the mystery of our perception, in which dream and reality coalesce.

Accreditation: One press ticket is available per arts correspondent. To apply, simply send us an email by Monday, 20 May 2019.

Rieger-Orgelbau GmbH
Hofsteigstraße 120
6858 Schwarzach

(os)